ZEITGEIST [Zeitgeist] Hot Air Balloons and Kites

A sidetrack this week was interest in tracking down the Ziggurat of Avilona which would need flying. This lead to Hot Air balloons and Kites would they work in this world? I have not come to a conclusion yet

How I imagine things working in the Zeit-verse is that air is now considerably less-viscous (or "thinner" or "softer") and thus can't be used to hold large creatures aloft. Also, there's never any heavy windstorms or hurricanes. So it would be difficult to find conditions that are apt for kite flying, and thus the hobby of kite flying probably never took off. (And even if someone were to invent kites, they'd be frustrating and under-performing.)

Hot air balloons are a different topic. (And I just went on my first RL hot air balloon ride this weekend, which is why I clicked on your thread!) Remember that hot air balloons have no way of steering: the only "controls" you have on a hot air balloon is that they can use a burner to rise slowly, they can drop a sandbag to rise quickly, and if they leave the burner off, they descend slowly. And you can open a flap on the side to let out air in order to rotate, but not to propel.

Hot air balloon rely on wind in order to get from place to place. There is a nominal amount of control a hot air balloon operator has due to the fact that different air currents go at different speeds and different directions at different altitudes, so by rising or falling into the right jet stream, they can kindof influence the direction that they're going. (In order to figure out whether they should rise or descend, balloonists will drop a small air-inflated balloon, and watch which way it falls, or look at birds above them, and make a guess as to what's going on up there.) Also note that prevailing wind directions often change at sunrise and sunset, which naturally sets up certain balloon "routes."

But the Ziggurat of Avilona is surrounded by all sorts of violent winds. It sounds like it would tear such a clumsy and delicate thing as a hot air balloon apart.

Anyway, food for thought.

Also, historical note for fun: back when hot air balloons were first invented, scientists believed that smoke was what provided the buoyancy (not just the heat), and that therefore the smokier the fire, the more effective. They often burned old linens and other dirty materials, not natural gas. So the original hot air balloons were really filthy, nasty things. (But I guess this gives you permission to get your Steampunk on and wear goggles!)

I can swear that somewhere (in adventure 6?) there is a side-note about annual festival of aeronaut enthusiasts in Ber. IMHO the main thing is not within the laws of the world, it's with the public.

Think of it this way: it took thousands of years in our world to create a working airship, while people looked at birds and envied their flight. People of Lanjyr do not envy birds. Or rather they had not until a recent misshap completely broke the world's connection to Avilona, and magical flight became impossible. Dragons can't fly not because "air is thinner", dragons can't fly because laws of physics stopped crying in the corner and air magic stopped working.

Not sure about the aeronaut convention , but there are numerous things I remember and then cannot find later. If I let players do something with Hot air balloons we are looking at more Montgolfier brothers than modern balloons certainly not some sort of Hybrid Zeppelin.
I think the point about it being a natural rather than magical flight is a good one so I will probably let such things work and of course as mentioned without massive magical support they are not getting through the storm to the flying island in a Balloon or even riding a Giant Bat and they have decided taking Gale near the island is a bad idea . They probably won't get around to trying this , it was just idle speculation but you never know with pc's

There are no giant bats in ZEITGEIST. I mean, there might be bats that are medium size, which are really big, but nothing large enough to ride. If a thing wouldn't fly in the real world, it won't fly in (pre-adventure 10) ZEITGEIST (with the exception of brief flight magic [and the even tighter exception of Gale]).

Manuel the Goblin has a giant bat animal companion which as a medium creature can carry him. This is fun and cool but does skirt the limits on flight but in a none magical, fun and not too powerful way

Found this in the player's guide, description of Ber in whole:

Beran cities tend toward stout, vertical buildings with prominent rooftop perches. Dragons no longer alight these roofs, but they have become part of Ber’s romantic conception of its own identity. Many festivals are celebrated on these old draconic perches, and many inventors from Crisillyir come to Ber to study winged flight and test glider designs.

Thanks
The character most interested in flight comes from Ber so that may be a nice tie in

efreund said:

Hot air balloons are a different topic. (And I just went on my first RL hot air balloon ride this weekend, which is why I clicked on your thread!) Remember that hot air balloons have no way of steering: the only "controls" you have on a hot air balloon is that they can use a burner to rise slowly, they can drop a sandbag to rise quickly, and if they leave the burner off, they descend slowly. And you can open a flap on the side to let out air in order to rotate, but not to propel.

Hot air balloon rely on wind in order to get from place to place. There is a nominal amount of control a hot air balloon operator has due to the fact that different air currents go at different speeds and different directions at different altitudes, so by rising or falling into the right jet stream, they can kindof influence the direction that they're going. (In order to figure out whether they should rise or descend, balloonists will drop a small air-inflated balloon, and watch which way it falls, or look at birds above them, and make a guess as to what's going on up there.) Also note that prevailing wind directions often change at sunrise and sunset, which naturally sets up certain balloon "routes."

Click to expand...

Fun story time: on the Isle of Odiem in adventure 4 (Always on Time), my group's (already pretty heavily wounded) Halfling Gunslinger/Paladin actually tried to get to Ottavia on top of her tower with the help of some Buoyant Balloons. Hilarious mental image already. I warned him that he would be easily visible slowly floating up the tower walls, but he said "eh, she's only been using Searing Light, I've got four balloons, she can't pop those quickly enough before I go to the top".

He resumed to float upwards, while Ottavia shot Searing Light at the others. Quoth the Halfling Gunslinger/Paladin: "See, she can't even hit me anymore, my balloons give me total cover! I'm a fokking genius!"

Right before he reached the top, Ottavia popped all of his balloons at once with a Sound Burst. Falling damage dropped him to -9, none of the others were close enough to reach him in time. That's one dead halfling.

Fokking genius indeed.

RangerWickett said:

If a thing wouldn't fly in the real world, it won't fly in (pre-adventure 10) ZEITGEIST (with the exception of brief flight magic [and the even tighter exception of Gale]).

Click to expand...

Quote from my table, where Gale is the love interest of one of the constables: "Dude, your GF is OP!"